My latest adventures in Superdrug

Field-notes from my latest prowl around the pink-bannered aisles.

• Revlon are looking to revive the matte colour trend with a range of matte eyeshadows, lipsticks and blush. However, I'm reminded that Urban Decay's matte shadow range is now doing the rounds on eBay for pennies, and MAC's Matte2 collection didn't really make waves either. It's hard to work this look on eyes without perfect priming and a total lack of wrinkles. My money would be on the lipsticks, which come in several very wearable-looking shades. The four that I tested are still clinging happily to the back of my hand. The items cost between £5 and £10 each.


• Barry M release new shades of nail polish including acid yellow, block orange and a gorgeous pastel mint green. The latter is the one on my shopping list - I haven't found a good one since my dear old Agnes B "Mint Milk" dried up into a goopy ooze years ago. Nail paints are £2.95 each, and there are frequent multi-buy deals here and at Boots.


• Bourjois finally get with the programme and bring us Coup de Theatre in a single-wand version. I.e. a fibre-enriched lengthening mascara that doesn't take the sort of chicanery guaranteed to make you late for work if you attempt it in the mornings. The tube looks pretty good - an elegantly tapered vial with eye-catching stripes, and at £9-ish is at least £1 cheaper (RRP) than the original double-ended version. The brush has been upgraded to a rubber flexi-type one as used in Maxfactor's Masterpiece. It's not online at the moment, but it's right there on the shelf I promise. I'll be buying and bringing you a review of this once I finish my much-loved Liner Effect mascara, also by Bourjois.

Mmm, oatmeal!

A great product for dry skin should be moisturising, but not too oily. It should soften the skin but not smother it.

I've had real trouble finding a product that delivered the right level of skin-nurturing without turning my bod into an uncomfortable oil-slick.

*drumroll*... Until now!

The value of oatmeal was first revealed to me when I started using Lush's Ceridwen's Cauldron bath melt. it's a solid chunk of oatmeal and shea butter (among a cornucopia of other fragrant Lush-typical naturals) that slowly melts in the bath, releasing beautiful scent and turning the water into a softening milky soup of dematological joy. It comes wrapped in a muslin cloth that by the end of your bath has become, well, a bag of porage.

You rub this over your skin for mild exfoliation and extra moisture - the oats themselves release a smooth, proteiny substance that sits on the skin and reinforces the moisturising effect of the bathe.

Noticing how much nicer my skin felt after one of these, I began to use Aveeno body lotion - a very reasonably priced high street line with colloidal oatmeal as the active ingredient. It's the non-sticky, effective body lotion I'd been looking for, and so much the better for costing less than £5 per tube!

It's early days, but I'm already feeling much more confident in revealing my erstwhile flaky bits come summer thanks to the two products above. Less confident about the weather, but hey, can't have everything, right?

A note on the bigger picture

A question niggles. Do I fly in the faces of my feminist foremothers by writing about girly facepaint?

Makeup is a girly pursuit. Maybe the girliest there is. It's about pretty colours and packaging, and it's about let's pretend and make-believe. Sparkle and shimmer. It's about having your own special box of magic tricks that transform you into someone else.

Someone with bigger eyes and more flawless skin and brighter softer lips - i.e. someone who fits very properly into the shackled and neutered sexist horror-show that culminates in crap like "Mow The Lawn" (which incidentally has now caused Wilkinson Sword products to be banned from my bathroom).

Wait though, no. I come from enlightened liberal stock, don't it? My radar is well-tuned to the plight of the downtrodden and the throb of the bleeding heart. I've read my "Female Eunuch" and "Our Bodies Ourselves". I know that shaving my legs (plucking my eyebrows, concealing my pustules and indeed wearing a bra rather than burning it) is a matter of choice. I have a relationship with a man whose appreciation doesn't fluctuate if they (the legs) are shaved or not and I know that's the way it should be.

Does that mean I can't appreciate the lure of a beautifully packaged palette of eyeshadows, and the escapist glamour of a new colour collection? Is this some Girl Power hypocrisy, a vacuous denial of everything that went before?

I know it's make-believe. I know it's just a game, dressing up, making pretty fantasy out of the kind of reality that hasn't eaten or slept as well as she should have and is looking a little jowly there after too many takeaways maybe.

I know it's not ME. I know it's not who I am. I know it comes off with cotton wool and cold cream. It's a hobby, not a measure of self-worth. If it's a mask, it's a temporary masquerade - and the real face behind it is no secret, and has nothing to hide.

Just so you know who you're talking to here.

Illamasqua brings dark seduction to the UK scene

A new brand with a new style has blown in on the winds of economic change. Brushing aside the vintage cute, the clinical minimalist and the edgy urban styles that currently populate the department store counters, Illamasqua draws on something much more timeless and dramatic - themes of sex, death, theatre, myth and fantasy. It's not quite Goth, it's not quite burlesque and it's not quite special effects.

What it is without doubt is a beautiful range of high-quality cosmetics from a new UK brand bursting with character and innovation.

With the four doctrines of Bite (lips), Scratch (nails), Pierce (eyes) and Lure (face), Illamasqua creates a world of colour and texture to help you express "your alter ego".

Illamasqua is currently being rolled out at counters across the UK, including Selfridges in Oxford Street and Manchester, and BTs in Dublin.

You can call your nearest counter to book an hour long makeup lesson or "Transformation" makeover at the hands of an Illamasqua artist. The cost is redeemable against products from the range. If you're tempted to take a walk on the wild side and discover your inner desires, Illamasqua might be a good place to start exploring.

A breather - new packaging and shades for Boots 17

I've started a hectic new job, and though there has been little time to update, I have been making a little corner of me-time here and there by scouting for beauty treasures when I go to buy my lunch.

Imagine my delight at seeing that national treasure of a beauty stalwart Boots 17 reincarnated with new packaging and shades.

A primary rainbow punch has been added to the Fast Finish and Lasting Fix nail polish ranges. Grey, azure, royal blue, sunshine yellow, bright white - think Barry M or Rimmel's latest offerings.

There are also some additions to the lip and eye colour ranges, with new shade names like Socialite and Chilli Fire.

Rounded sans-serif font has taken a back seat in favour of a more glam, Too-Faced style typesetting on the packaging. There's also a bold, modern look to the small-print on the bottom of lipstick tubes and the back of bottles.

The new look has taken 17 a step further from its workaday teenage roots and into the more edgy/glamorous frame set by some of the more funky premium beauty brands. I sense the benign influence of Too Faced, Urban Decay and Hard Candy at work here.

My little brain registered these details and impressions during a ten-minute snatched tryst with the beauty aisles in Boots yesterday. You can find out more for yourself at your local branch. Unfortunately the new styling hasn't made an appearance online yet, but if Piccadilly Circus is anything to go by, the products are right there on the shelves now.

What's more, you can try one of the new nail polish shades gratis when you buy any other product.

Go go, look look, and enjoy!

A beautiful Seoul

Last summer I visited South Korea. Aside from the many amazing sights and sounds in Seoul, Busan, Andong and on the road between, one of the things I found most intriguing was the beauty culture.

In the centre of Seoul is a shopping district called Myeongdong - something akin to Japan's Harajuku or London's Covent Garden or Brick Lane - a handful of downtown blocks brimming with youth, fashion, crowds, energy and style. It's not the only place of note for beauty locations, but it has everything that characterises the Korean beauty scene, and has it in spades. It's here I went to explore inside the storefronts that had been tempting me ever since I stepped out of the airport.

There are several large beauty chains in Korea, and they are clearly big business, with stores in all major malls and high streets. They're frequented by women of all ages, clustering like happy bees around the amazing variety of shades and finishes available for eyes, lips, face and nails. A good example is Etude House. It's a beauty brand that unreservedly embraces the Asian trend of CUTE.

Packaging that's baby pink and adorned with sparkle and curlicued styling, store fittings to match. Their locations are more like scaled-up Barbie houses than shops, each a garish profusion of pink, sugary cuteness. And most remarkably of all to my English eyes, used to comparatively staid and traditional Boots and Superdrug, are the staff, dressed in pink frills with candy-striped stockings, cheeks lurid with blusher. They stand at the door holding out baskets lined with sample sachets and freebies to tempt you in. You have to make a minimum spend to keep the treats, of course.

There's also Skin Food, something like Lush or the Body Shop but with the usual Korean rainbow of nail polish and eyeshadow shades. On buying a few things to bring home, I received an amazing fistful of samples from the sales assistant who maybe took pity on my lack of Korean language skills. My windfall included a baffling array of "natural" unguents - broccoli sun cream with SPF 42? Peach Saké Pore Serum? Mmm.

Another big player is The Face Shop, which has a slightly more clinical, grown-up aura to it but still puts on an impressive show of cosmetics, face and body care, nail polish, masks and treatments. Going by the folks I visited, there seem to be few women in Korea without a few Face Shop products on their bathroom or bedroom counters.

The best thing about Korean beauty shopping, apart from the amazing variety of new brands, colours and trends, was the price. It's no wonder Korean women are so gorgeously groomed, with big chains providing quality cosmetics at pocket-money prices. A high-quality, well pigmented eyeshadow costs just a few thousand won (1000W= about 50p), with nail polish from as little as 2000W.

It's part of a bigger theme I sensed during my visit - a strong interest in looking good and making a statement through that. Women can often be seen unselfconsciously checking their appearance in the full-length mirrors near the ticket barriers in the underground. Men too, seem to be part of this climate of aesthetics, and are happy to join their female contemporaries in the Sephora-like beauty emporiums found throughout the capital. My Korean friend and host, a 24 year old guy, was able to direct me to the makeup shops and even browse with me, advising on shades and trying the testers on his hand.

I left Korea with a lot of new ideas, memories, and additions to my makeup bag. There's infinitely more to the place than makeup, but if you do visit, be sure to give at least an afternoon over to some serious cosmetic browsing.

Sights (that should be) unseen

Spotted in Tottenham Court Road Boots - a girl using the tester mascara at the Too Faced fixture to make up her eyes.

Surely everyone knows by now that you should NEVER share mascara, let alone use one that is avilable to all and sundry?